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The Big 12 championship game will be played at Jerry's World in Arlington, Texas, beginning in 2017.

AT&T Stadium will host the freshly birthed title game from 2017-2021. Kansas City and San Antonio were two other host cities being seriously considered but ultimately falling to the wayside. In a statement, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said, "The building is a state of the art facility and offers many amenities that will be enjoyed by our institutions and fans." The Big 12 opted to implement a title game over the summer. Come 2017, the top two teams in the conference by record will do battle down in Texas for conference title rights. There had been talk of perhaps splitting the conference into divisions, but that did not come to pass. Nov 18 - 12:09 PM

The Big 12 championship game will pit the first- and second-place teams in the conference against each other, rather than utilize divisions.

Expansion plans might have been scuttled this month, but Big 12 designs on a title game remain in place, with the championship contest set to begin after the 2017 regular season. "The guaranteed No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup will be a great game for our fans," said commissioner Bob Bowlsby in a statement, "and it's hard to imagine a stronger position for a conference champion." Should two teams finish the regular season tied in terms of total wins, head-to-head play will serve as the tiebreaker to determine who will reach that title game. ESPN's Brett McMurphy reports that Arlington, Texas, currently stands as the "prohibitive favorite" to host next year's contest. Oct 28 - 12:55 PM

"It's the same coordinator that also we led the league in every defensive category a year ago, and made it to the final four," Stoops said. "We're not running a new defense. He didn't bring in something different. It's the same defense." A few dreadful defensive stats to feast your eyes upon in regards to the Sooners -- they rank last in the Big 12 in pass defense (413.2 passing yards per game), eighth in the Big 12 in points allowed during conference play (40.5 points) and ninth in the Big 12 in total defense (532 total yards allowed on average). "We have faith in our guys. We're going to coach them to be better and we believe they will be better," Stops said. A soft match-up with Kansas awaits this coming weekend. Oct 25 - 12:11 PM

ESPN's Brett McMurphy reports that rather than settling on an outright unanimous decision, Big 12 programs agreed to a non-expansion course once it was clear that a supermajority could not be reached.

An anonymous source told McMurphy, ""When presidents get in a room and read the tea leaves that it's going the way it's going, they go with it," adding that "[e]ven if there were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 [schools in favor of expansion], those presidents are very skilled in seeing the inevitability of the outcome and aligning on the right side of history." While the conference is putting on a united front, the decision has received scorn from some corners. Texas governor Greg Abbott, for instance, wrote on social media that the Big 12 owes an apology for the way they handled the decision. He also wrote that they "shanked their future." Oct 18 - 6:01 PM

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The Big 12 championship game will pit the first- and second-place teams in the conference against each other, rather than utilize divisions.

Expansion plans might have been scuttled this month, but Big 12 designs on a title game remain in place, with the championship contest set to begin after the 2017 regular season. "The guaranteed No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup will be a great game for our fans," said commissioner Bob Bowlsby in a statement, "and it's hard to imagine a stronger position for a conference champion." Should two teams finish the regular season tied in terms of total wins, head-to-head play will serve as the tiebreaker to determine who will reach that title game. ESPN's Brett McMurphy reports that Arlington, Texas, currently stands as the "prohibitive favorite" to host next year's contest.

"It's the same coordinator that also we led the league in every defensive category a year ago, and made it to the final four," Stoops said. "We're not running a new defense. He didn't bring in something different. It's the same defense." A few dreadful defensive stats to feast your eyes upon in regards to the Sooners -- they rank last in the Big 12 in pass defense (413.2 passing yards per game), eighth in the Big 12 in points allowed during conference play (40.5 points) and ninth in the Big 12 in total defense (532 total yards allowed on average). "We have faith in our guys. We're going to coach them to be better and we believe they will be better," Stops said. A soft match-up with Kansas awaits this coming weekend.

ESPN's Brett McMurphy reports that rather than settling on an outright unanimous decision, Big 12 programs agreed to a non-expansion course once it was clear that a supermajority could not be reached.

An anonymous source told McMurphy, ""When presidents get in a room and read the tea leaves that it's going the way it's going, they go with it," adding that "[e]ven if there were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 [schools in favor of expansion], those presidents are very skilled in seeing the inevitability of the outcome and aligning on the right side of history." While the conference is putting on a united front, the decision has received scorn from some corners. Texas governor Greg Abbott, for instance, wrote on social media that the Big 12 owes an apology for the way they handled the decision. He also wrote that they "shanked their future."

Sports Illustrated's Pete Thamel reports that the Big 12 has decided not to expand.

The Big 12 held a meeting of the Board of Directors on Monday and there will be a press conference later to officially announce their plans (or lack thereof). When commissioner Bob Bowlsby initially announced that the conference planned on expanding back in late July, there seemed to be a groundswell of momentum toward it actually happening, with Houston, BYU, Cincinnati and a host of others all hoping to gain entry. Opposition has emerged in the interim, though. One vocal opponent, FOX Sports president Eric Shanks, who went so far as to say that adding more teams would be "dilutive to the product in the short term" and "probably harmful to the future of the conference" in the long term. Whether Bowlsby and friends plan on trying this whole experiment again in the offseason remains to be seen.

FOX Sports president Eric Shanks indicated that he is not in favor of any plan that would have the Big 12 expanding.

"We don’t think expansion in the Big 12 is a good idea for the conference," Shanks said. "We think it will be dilutive to the product in the short term. In the long term, it’s probably harmful to the future of the conference." After announcing plans for expansion in July, the Big 12 has been slow to move and it is looking increasingly less likely that anything will actually get done here. SI's Pete Thamel reported on Friday that the "most likely outcome" is for the conference to stand pat. The Big 12's Board of Directors is meeting on Monday, with a press conference to follow.

Sports Illustrated's Pete Thamel reports that "the [Big 12]’s most likely outcome is not expanding."

Earlier this week, the Dallas Morning News' Chuck Carlton pegged the odds of expansion at 1-in-3. If Thamel's report is accurate, those odds might be generous. The SI reporter writes that "[m]ultiple sources indicated there have been discussions with the Big 12’s TV partners to pay the league not to expand." A meeting of conference presidents will take place on Sunday and Monday, with a press conference scheduled for 6:00 EST on Monday to announce the fate of any potential expansion.

The Dallas Morning News' Chuck Carlton reports that "[Big 12] expansion has gone from likelihood about six weeks ago to maybe a 1-in-3 chance."

The Big 12 will be holding a board of directors meeting on Monday, with a press conference to follow. Per Carlton, "[P]retty much all the options are on the table, including the possibility of football-only membership with Houston and BYU the most likely members." Expansion looked like a near-certainty over the summer, but there have been recent rumblings that the conference might opt not to move off their current 10-team membership. This should all clarify come Monday.

Oklahoma HC Bob Stoops is shutting off the media availability for some of his players due to comments made by freshman QB Austin Kendall prior to Saturday's Ohio State showdown.

Kendall called Ohio State's defense "basic" and predicted that Baker Mayfield would "light them up." That did not come to pass, of course, as Mayfield and the Sooners managed just 24 points in the blowout loss. Stoops is trying to prevent the bulletin board material. With two losses on the ledger, Oklahoma will have to hope for multiple dominoes to fall -- while running the slate in their final nine games -- if they want a shot at returning to the Playoff.

Baylor did manage to rise several spots, jumping from No. 21 to No. 16, but that is as high as the Big 12 reaches in this week's poll. Texas dropped from No. 11 to No. 21 with their loss to Michigan State while Oklahoma nearly tumbled out of the poll completely following their blowout defeat at the hands of Ohio State. They are clinging on at No. 25 after opening the season rubbing shoulders with the likes of Alabama and Clemson.

Oklahoma president David Boren indicated that Big 12 expansion shouldn't be considered a given.

"I wouldn’t take expansion as a given. I wouldn’t take it as a sure thing," Boren said following a meeting of the board of regents. He is actually in favor of expansion, so these comments aren't being given a spin of bias. The Big 12 has been narrowing its contenders down over the past month-and-a-half, with Houston, Cincinnati, BYU, UConn, UCF and USF all reportedly still in the mix to join the conference. Assuming anybody joins the conference.

McMurphy relays that the general lean at this time is that the conference won't expand to 14 teams. According to the Worldwide Leader's report, "The most likely scenario is that the Big 12 will stay at 10 teams or only add two schools for a 12-team league with two six-team divisions." Among the teams expected to make presentations to Bowlsby, Cincinnati, Houston, BYU, South Florida, UCF, UConn, Memphis, Colorado State, Boise State, Tulane, Temple, East Carolina, SMU, New Mexico and Northern Illinois.

The Dallas Morning News' Chuck Carlton reports that no school being considered for Big 12 expansion has drawn the required eight votes to join the conference.

While Carlton relayed that the Big 12 has yet to truly settle on its expansion targets yet, he additionally noted that "[i]n-depth discussions and inevitable horse trading haven't really begun yet." He is also hearing that a football-only invite to the conference is unlikely, with a source telling him, "Nobody wants it." Last week, it was reported that BYU would consider joining the Big 12 on a football-only basis, but if Carlton's source is on-point, that might no longer be a realistic possibility.

Sports Business Daily's John Ourand and Michael Smith report that ESPN and FOX have concerns about the Big 12's plans for expansion.

Per Ourand and Smith, "ESPN and Fox Sports believe that expansion with schools from outside the power five conferences will water down the Big 12 and make it less valuable, not more." Should the conference add two teams, ESPN and FOX Sports would be forced to pay an additional $40 in rights fees. That doubles if the conference adds four teams. "Both networks, according to sources, are digging their heels in against paying those kinds of increases based on expansion with schools outside the power five," write the Sports Business Daily pair. CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd reported late last week that the Big 12 would like to complete the expansion process by the start of the 2016 campaign, so we might hear more of this divide in the coming days.

CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd reports that the Big 12 would like to wrap up the expansion process before the start of the season.

Dodd relays that according to three people with knowledge of the situation, "the Big 12 doesn't want expansion to overshadow the league's football season with a drawn-out process that would extend into the 2016 campaign." When CBS Sports reached out to conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby for comment, he declined to put a potential timetable to the proceedings. If Dodd's report proves accurate, pieces figure to rapidly start to fall into place over the coming weeks. Looking at the near future, AAC Media Days are set for Monday and Tuesday. With multiple rumored Big 12 targets residing in the AAC, it figures to be a fun few days for gossip. Probably less so for the assembled coaches and players.